ABOUT

The Love­pro­ject

The Way of Love is in the oppo­si­tion of vio­lence. Love tries to under­stand, to con­vince, to bring things alive. Because of that, the ones that love are always trans­form­ing them­selves. They feel more, see more, are pro­duc­tive, and are more them­selves. Love doesn’t mean weak­ness or being sen­ti­men­tal. It’s rather a method to influ­ence and change things, with­out the dan­ger­ous side effects like vio­lence. Oth­er than in vio­lence, love needs inner strengths and fore­most courage.
«To have or to be» — Erich Fromm

The Love­pro­ject was an Art­pro­ject by Rudi-Renoir Appoldt and took place 1. May 2003, in Times Square New York. Its inten­tion was to kick of a glob­al love­move­ment, through a LOVE Bill­board in Times Square.

Experience Hope

The project want­ed to encour­age peo­ple world­wide to share there wish for love. Through the expe­ri­ence that we are con­nect­ed in this wish for love, we might find a com­mon ground for work­ing togeth­er towards non-vio­lence and peace.

Empowerment

The Love­bill­board in Times Square was meant as a start­ing point to inspire a glob­al move­ment. The unique loca­tion in Times Square was cho­sen to get max­i­mum media cov­er­age and also to imple­ment love into the heart of a city that got hurt. The Bill­board was ment to inspire oth­ers to buy up more Bill­boards and then from there go viral into the world. A wider pub­lic would then get word of it through the media and start par­tic­i­pat­ing by repli­cat­ing the love mes­sage world­wide on bill­boards or what would be avail­able to them. With the result that we visu­al­ly would start to see glob­a­ly this wish for love.

The Artist thought that a Love­bill­board in Times Square is so unique, that it would be self explaina­to­ry and inspir­ing to the pub­lic, but this was not the case.

The reflex­ions and find­ings of the Artist with this project can be read with­in THEMAKINGOF and ESSAY.

Can it be done?

It should be pos­si­ble that we could get enaged into a glob­al wish for love. The Ques­tion is, can we find a def­i­n­i­tion, we all can agree upon? Are we will­ing to get into a dialog about it, to try to under­stand what it means to us and oth­er peo­ple? Does this com­mon ground exist?

On the Inter­net are var­i­ous Projects that have tak­en on this idea, like for instance Revlon is ask­ing for three def­i­n­i­tions of Love and to post it on Insta­gram, or Star­bucks did a glob­al project by hav­ing peo­ple sing «all you need is love» world­wide. The­se are great projects, with the result that humans get con­nect­ed to brands. This project wants to con­nect humans to humans, and likes to fos­ter the hope for a world less vio­lent.

There­fore the artist likes to open up the dialog by using the def­i­n­i­tion of Eric Fromm that the way of love is in oppo­si­tion of vio­lence.

If you like to get engaged into a glob­al dialog about love, leave your Emailadresse here. If a crit­i­cal mass is reached, you will be informed about a fol­low up event. Be inspired and don’t hes­i­tate to spread your love 🙂.